I Hate 24 with a Passion

OK. I stuck it out through the entire season. Sure, I gave up for a couple of weeks there, when, after every episode I was irritated beyond words at the sheer stupidity of what I saw. But then The Canuck pulled me back into the 24 spiral of insanity. (Semi-Godfather reference.)

So tonight was the "2 hour season finale" of this season. I'm not going to put spoilers in here...mostly.

However, I read an article last week that said basically that the producers knew this season sucked and that they were going to fix things for next season. They were going to take the show out of LA, and it was going to be Jack Bauer and a whole new cast of characters. Perhaps some old fave actors would show up, as new characters, but basically, a whole new cast. So that pretty much tells me that, say, if we don't know now whether Ex-President Logan is alive or dead, we won't know later.

Guess what?

We don't know.

We also don't know who The Mole is (I still think Milo, and the appearance of his creepy brother doesn't help his case). We still don't know whether President Wayne is going to make it. We don't know about his annoying sister's reasonably cool boyfriend (remember him? The Muslim who got the stuffing kicked out of him at Camp Bombalot?) We don't know how Mike Doyle is. (I'm not sure we care, but still...) We don't know whether Josh's dad is Jack or the granddad. (The only thing we're reasonably sure of is that Josh's dad isn't his dad, if you know what I mean.)

That's really freaking annoying. I mean, I GET cliffhangers. I get Jack walking off into the sunset and not sure where he's going to land. But if they are not going to continue the other characters, the least they can do is clean up the messes.

I am SOOOO not happy right now.

Last Night's 24 (Spoiler Alert!)

Random thoughts from last night's 24:

1. When Morris and Potato Face were having their latest awkwardness, and Milo asks "What's going on?" and WON'T DROP IT UNTIL THEY TALK ABOUT IT, I had a weird flashback to 10th grade. Come on! National crisis, national crisis, NATIONAL CRISIS!!! (Side note: I know Chloe is a very popular character, but I really don't see why. Really.)

2. Milo's whole cornering Nadia and saying how hurt he is because he thinks he senses feelings between Nadia and Mike Doyle was really weird and stalky. Seriously. He kissed her like 2 hours ago, and suddenly he's all wounded feelings about Nadia and Doyle? WHAT?

3. But all that gets dealt with nicely, when the Chinese bad guys bust into CTU, and shoot Milo through the head. (Hurray!) Now, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure he's dead. I don't think you walk away from something like that. No more Mr. Stalky! Can you tell I'm not crushed? Actually, they could have taken out Potato Face too. I actually prefer jerky Morris to her. At least he's semi-fun to watch, when he's not whining and feeling sorry for himself. She's just awful.

4. I still think Milo is the mole, though. I mean, since we now know that James Cromwell (Jack's dad) is behind the busting into CTU, and we know how very sentimental he is (not), it would be an obvious move for him have the mole shot.

5. You know, at the beginning of the episode, when Nadia and the guards are talking to Jack after he got locked up again, I was thinking, Gosh, company Christmas parties must be really really awkward at that place, since isn't that the guard that Jack just beat up in the last episode? I mean, how do you put something like that behind you? Then he got shot by the Chinese, and I realized, Jack never has to say he's sorry. Everyone around him ends up dead.

6. Once again, Tom Lennox kicked heiny. The scene where blondie is freaking out because she's scared to try and get info off her russkie-loving boytoy, and he basically says, "Suck it up. You got yourself into this, and I don't feel sorry for you at all" was AWESOME! (Side note: the chick that plays her goes on my list of chicks who need to eat a sandwich, stat. The scene where we see her nude back was creepy. I haven't seen bones that prominent outside of sub-saharan Africa. She makes Callista Flockhart look pudgy. Ick.)

7. Have I mentioned that it rocks that James Cromwell is back?!?!

I guess 2 more episodes left... Can I make out a wish list of characters for them to kill?

Also, an open letter to the 24 folks: I DON'T WANT TO DEAL WITH THE DRAMA OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS. IF I WANTED THAT, I WOULD WATCH GREY'S ANATOMY. OR DAYS OF OUR LIVES. GIVE ME ACTION, WITH AS LITTLE PERSONAL CRAP AS POSSIBLE. IN FACT, I THINK THAT'S ONE OF THE REASONS "LAW & ORDER" REMAINED SO POPULAR FOR SO LONG. THE PERSONAL STUFF IS RARE. AND IT'S ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS FOR YOU TO EXPECT US TO BUY THE CHLOE AND MORRIS SHOW DURING A NATIONAL CRISIS. SERIOUSLY. CUT IT OUT. THANK YOU.

Last Night's 24

So The Canuck convinced me that I may have just given up on 24 a teeny-weeny bit prematurely, so I tuned back in last week, and again last night.

The show is an After School Special for Why You Don't Fish From The Company Dock.

Exhibit 1: The ongoing drama of Potato Face and Morris (and sometimes Milo). I'm not even certain whether Potato Face and Morris are actually still married, or an example of those seriously delusional "it didn't work the first time we were married, but what the hell, let's try dating anyway!" people. Anyway, at the beginning of the season Chloe and Milo had gone on like 1 date (girls: Milo was being awfully stalky for a 1 date guy, don't you think?) and she was back with Morris...blah blah blah...like sands through the hourglass... Fast forward to now, when they get into a snippy little fight, Chloe says something truly awful, Morris tells her it's over FOR REAL THIS TIME JACKIE BURKHART, and Chloe crys. It takes Nadia, the Muslim who went from being the suspected mole to in charge of CTU on the same day, to tell them to grow up, quit mixing business with pleasure, and focus on the fact that HELLO! They are in the middle of a national crisis! IDIOTS!

Exhibit 2: Then you have the reason Nadia the mole/nonmole is in charge of CTU. The director, Bill Buchanan, got fired. BY HIS WIFE. Who happens to be the National Security Advisor. If you don't think that will affect their marriage, you are more naive that I thought!

Exhibit 3: VP Daniels (Who's Acting President, what with Whiny Wayne in the hospital again), who is apparently a widower, has been... ahem... boinking his secretary, the blonde gal whose name I can never remember. Well, buddy, guess what? She's got a dishy dude on the side, who just happens to be feeding info to the Russians! (oopsie!) And he has to get advice on how to handle this from Tom Lennox. Pretty emasculating.

Exhibit 4: I'm not sure how Jack met Audrey. I'm not sure the background of that whole thing. I just know he was willing to risk an awful lot of people's lives to get her back. And I take that a little personally.

So you see boys and girls, if you work for a large corporation and want to date someone who is not in your own particular division, who you see on the elevator, in the lunch room, at company picnics, that's groovy, baby.

If you are trying to save the world from the scourge of terrorism and nuke-lear weapons, and that person sits at the next terminal or that person is your boss, DON'T GO FOR IT. You will regret it.

Other random musings:

1. I am really liking Tom Lennox.
2. I finally figured it out - Chloe reminds me of Renee Zellweger. She's got the exact same could burst into tears at any moment look on her face. Eewww.
3. I actually really like Nadia too. Throughout the whole season, she has been relatively sane, intelligent, and not getting all wigged out about stuff. Plus she seems to have recovered from the trauma of being roughed up by Ricky Schroder pretty well. As the new leader, she has been decisive and fair. Sure, she was a little wishy-washy last night, but come on: she's like 21, she's been put in charge during a national crisis! All in all, I think she's handling it well. It will suck if she turns out to be the mole. But I don't think she is. I'm still kind of thinking it's Milo.

Update on 24

Well, it was brief but glorious. I have already lost interest in the show everyone assures me is the best show ever.

I haven't even seen in for the last 2 or 3 weeks. It isn't even that I haven't been home. (I mean, it's 9 pm on Monday night - where am I going to be? I'm mature enough now (read: old and boring) to realize that if I don't get to bed by a reasonable time early in the week, I'm toast by Friday.) I just don't care about the show. I do kind of feel like a heretic, but I will not eat green eggs and ham...

I heard somewhere that the Black Donnellys was cancelled, but I don't know that's true. Needless to say, my interest in that show peaked the first night and went downhill from there.

And CBC has sent Coronation Street to the Sunday 7:30 am ghetto until hockey playoffs are over. Now THAT bothers me.

It's a funny thing about TV. I like TV. Well, let me qualify that. I am not the sort of person who sniffs, "I NEVER watch television. (I'm too busy reading Kafka, or Ayn Rand or whatever.)" But most of the shows that are on don't thrill me. I've already said that I don't like reality TV. I try to never watch the news, not the least of which because most the brains of most "news commentators" these days can barely support the weight of their hair.

But the shows I like, I really like. I especially like comedies, although it seems that the only funny comedies on television these days are cartoons. And I enjoy a good mystery. (But CSI doesn't particularly appeal to me. The writers of that show only seem interested in showing the rest of the nation that Calipornia and New York aren't the only depraved places in the USA. Good to know, and yet another reason my tourism money won't be going to Vegas anytime this century.)

I really enjoy Law & Order (especially the Jerry Orbach episodes) but usually turn off the show halfway through, because watching the weasely lawyers trying to get their clients off gets my goat.

But I don't generally make it a point to sit down and watch a show every week. You know, how people used to say "OK. It's Wednesday at 8:30. Ozzy and Harriet is on." (Or whatever.) So actually making an effort to sit down and watch 24 proved too much for me. I think I'm going to follow the advice of a guy I was talking to on the bus. (No, it didn't involve a tin foil helmet - this was a suburban bus!) He said he never watches 24 during the season. He rents the old season from Netflix. That way he doesn't have to deal with commericals, waiting between episodes etc. Plus it seems like less of a demand on his time.

I think I'll try that. And if The Canuck is to be believed, last season (5) is the one to start with.

I Guess I'm Not the Only One

I Guess I'm Not The Only One - Originally posted April 2

Who was ever-so-amused by the "autistic guy to the rescue" theme from last week's 24. Here's Television Without Pity's take on it:

"The call rings through to the cell phone of a white guy making a depressing little scrambled-egg dinner in a depressing little kitchen, while another man sits and waits at the kitchen table. The guy with the phone, a Mark Hauser, isn't happy to be talking to Gredenko. It seems that he sold Gredenko some kind of access to his employer's something or other, but now it's not working any more, so Gredenko needs fresh protocols. With a guilty look at the guy he's making dinner for, Mark puts up a weak protest. But he quickly caves and says it's going to take a half-hour or more. Gredenko says that he'll be there in forty minutes, and hangs up. Mark returns to the kitchen, where the man sitting at the table announces, "I hongry." Oh, I see how it is. This makes me very, very worried. Mark scoops dinner out of the skillet onto his brother's plate, and his brother complains that it contains red peppers. "I don't eat red food," he Rain Mans. As stressed out as he must be right now, Mark swallows his temper and agrees to take the peppers out. "You take care of me, Mark. You always take care of me," his brother Lennys. For a developmentally disabled character, he certainly is astute about how quickly the show needs him to set up the dynamic between the two brothers. While Mark's de-peppering dinner, he asks his brother Brady to get on the computer and get some files from his office mainframe. Brady gets up and goes to the laptop without asking what files, but that's why you have an autistic-savant brother in the first place, so you don't have to worry about the details. Mark stands and watches him. Doesn't he have some peppers to fish out? "

Here's the whole thing if you're interested: http://www.televisionwithoutpity.com/articles/content/a12937/

Last Night's 24 Suckfest

Last Nights 24 Suckfest - Originally posted April 3

I'm sorry - I feel like a bit of a heretic, but after listening to people have totally organic experiences*** for the last several years about how 24 is the best show EVER, and how they are working to bring Lucy, Jackie Gleason and Uncle Miltie back from the dead just so they could kiss Kiefer Sutherland's feet, I'm really not feeling the love for 24 that I expected to.

Last night possibly topped last week's episode as the most completely stupid ever. Although there were no autistic people being used as bait this week...First of all, we STILL have no clue about the fate of Mr. Usurped the Presidency Logan, or his wacky wife. Then we have President Palmer Junior, who was nearly blown up in a bomb attempt a few hours ago, who has been de-comafied by his doctors so he can show the VP that he IS competent to run the country (competent only in the sense that he's lucid, not competent in the sense that he has ever had a clue what he's doing). To which the VP says, No you're not either. So it comes down to a vote of the Cabinet, which is (of course) a TIE. Then the Veep says, Well, Karen's vote doesn't count, because she resigned! So I win! Neener-neener Boo-boo! To which Karen gets all huffy and whiny. Aside: Sorry, Chickie. You did resign, because Tom Lennox was being a big meanie to you. Guess what? You had a Cartman moment (Screw you guys, I'm going home!) and shuffled off to the airport to fly home to LA and the arms of your hubby. You don't get to take that back like that. You even resigned without notice, during a major national crisis. I can't think of any employer I've ever had who would have reacted to that with, "That's OK! Get back over here, you big palooka!"However (and I'm really embarrassed to even admit this, but 12th grade Government class was just a few...eons ago, so oh well) is this even the correct policy when something like this comes up? I'm trying to think if this ever HAS come up - maybe President Wilson, when he had that stroke? And even if that's the case, is the National Security Adviser a member of the Cabinet? The Secretary of Defense is, sure. I guess it doesn't matter, since in 24merica, this is how it works. Anyway...in a storyline that really really took too long, the President wins and is declared competent. (Never mind that he keeps making funny faces like he's in terrible pain, or perhaps is very constipated. That wouldn't be a warning sign would it?)

All this, only to prove that perhaps it WAS a little too soon for him to take the reins back from the Veep, because - he launches a nuclear strike against Islamia (they steadfastly refuse to name Fayed's country, so I just did)!!! Again, can he DO that? Can the President order a nuclear strike? Doesn't he have to get congressional approval or something? 12th grade is a bit of a blur (no, I wasn't stoned, just disinterested) but the phrase "checks and balances" keeps popping into my head.

Next we have Nadia (the Mole/not the Mole) back at work. She gets a phone call from Ricky Schroder, telling her to come to his office, and not to tell anyone where she's going. Um..OK. Sure. I mean, you tied me up and throttled me last week, why wouldn't I go into an office alone with you without telling anyone where I'm going? Once there, he says that perhaps they got off on the wrong foot. (nooooo.) BUT, here's the thing - he knows who the Mole is: Milo. (Which I predicted a couple of weeks ago). Blah blah blah, security perimeters... I can't understand the geekspeak, but the way it's said makes me suspect Nadia again, since we all know she's been using Milo's security code. Meh. It's one of the two of them. I want it to be Milo, because for it to be Nadia would be SOOOO predictible. Plus I really truly can't stand Milo's pornostache. I just want to have Ricky tie him up so I can shave it off. With a dull razor.

Then, we have, once again, miracle medicine. First the President recovers from his TBI like that (snaps fingers), and now, we have the incredible walking amputee! So Jack has Gredenko, and is going to use him to set a trap for Fayed. They set him up with an audio bug (which looks like it's from the I Spy era) and then - coolness! - insert a different bug (tracking device thingie) into the skin of his forearm, which has radioactive isotopes in it ("Topes rule! Wooo!") that "have a half-life of 11 hours." Thanks for the info, Dr. Science. Now can you tell me why you're injecting the bug into his forearm, instead of his torso, or the one extremity no man is ever going to cut off willingly (except for those Hale-Bopp guys)?

So, naturally, Gredenko gets to Fayed, says "Shhh" while he shows them the audio bug, which they destroy, and then, in a move that even John Wayne couldn't pull off, sits silently while they hack off his forearm with an ax! Come ON! No flipping way! You are not got to have your forearm chopped off without crying out. (With an ax that just happens to be in Building J at the Santa Monica Pier.) Then, because the completely useless radioactive isotopes are sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, the bad guys are able to make their getaway. Once again, I'm not a doctor, but wouldn't the pain of having your forearm chopped off render you unconscious? Seriously. Your body has overrides when things get too painful. Of course, later he collapses under the dock as the tide comes in, and all I can think is: where's Jaws when you really need him? I mean, all that blood ought to bring out at least one shark, right?

There were really only 2 cool moments last night:

1. When Fayed and Gredenko are running away (Gredenko clutching his bloody stump) and they run through a bar - Gredenko yells out that Fayed is the terrorist everyone is looking for, and the bar patrons surround him and kick the crap out of them. Then Jack shows up and makes them stop. Then he kicks Fayed in the head. Hurray!

2. Tom Lennox (the Ghostbusters 2 guy) saves the day, AGAIN, by bugging the Veep's office, so he is able to tape the slutty secretary offering to perjure herself for the Veep. (Then again, I'd "perjure" myself for him too - he's the only studly guy in Washington, it appears.) Bet Tom ate his Wheaties this morning, because he a just been a superhero!

***Totally Organic Experience was a horrifically skanky ad campaign for Clairol shampoo a few years ago. (Isn't that just a clever play on words?! Yes, if you're in 7th grade!) It was nauseating to watch, and (although I'm sure Clairol could care less) it cost Clairol a third generation customer, because I refused to buy the product anymore. And I still haven't gone back, even though the ad campaign is, thankfully, over.